Troops in Afghanistan Will See Through Walls in 2010

Soldiers can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, yet. Seeing through walls — that’s a different story. Later this year, American troops fighting in Afghanistan will begin to get gadgets designed to peer inside buildings and detect the heartbeat of people buried under rubble. It’s not exactly Superman’s x-ray vision. But it’s not that far way from it, either.

The handheld receiver decodes these signals, and displays the image it saw on the screen of the device, creating a picture of what’s happening on the other side of the wall, or 10 feet underground. The device also has a wireless connection to a computer, so it can immediately send the image for processing and analysis.

TiaLinx, the company behind the Eagle sensors, told Defense News that the scanners can detect a person or animal 20 feet behind an 8-inch thick slab of concrete. That technology has piqued the interest of the military, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and other organizations from police bureaus to utility companies.

The technology is a lot like the ground-penetrating radar already being used by the military, but with a few notable improvements. The Eagle imagers use an ultra-wideband signal, which means it sends out signals over a variety of frequencies, creating a more exact and detailed picture. The ultra-wideband scanners also use a great deal less power, which means the sensors are smaller, lighter, and longer-lasting: the Eagles supposedly last up to four hours on a single battery charge.

That wireless connection creates a number of new possibilities for the Eagle’s use. They can be sent on a small robot or drone into places not safe for people, and can immediately and wirelessly transmit whatever they see, even more than would be visible to the naked eye. Danger zones or hostage situations, where human presence might only worsen the situation, can be monitored from outside.

One immediate use for the Eagle technology in Afghanistan is avoiding the Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, that are responsible for a huge number of the casualties in the war so far. The British military is considering buying a technology similar to the Eagle that would allow them to locate immediately where bombs are buried, speeding up the time it takes to clear a convoy route and lowering casualty rates for soldiers. The United States already uses this technology, the NIITEK Visor, on its convoy-clearing vehicles.

They’re not a bird, or a plane, but the Eagle sensors could be critical in hostage or disaster relief situations, in locating leaks and tunnels underground, or in gaining a tactical advantage through a previously impenetrable wall. The sensors will be rolled out to soldiers sometime this year, and may be wider-used shortly after that.

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